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After playing Neverwinter MMO for quite some time, my excitement for the game is beige. About as exciting as dead grass.

The only interesting things in this game are the adventure creation and the npc vendor who suggest equipment to wear. The fact that it touts being a D&D game and then finding out there is no, none, nothing that is D&D, well that doesn’t bode well. I could understand dumbing down some of the D&D mechanics, but gutting the system to the point of hey we will give you 2 die rolls for stats are almost meaningless, sucks the fun out of it. You do see a speck of D&D by the use of words such as drow.

This proceeds into more meaningless character creation that is all looks and no substance. Here let us give you the appearance of having lots of skills, but sorry we are kinda of control freaks and you can only choose a couple of pointless skills after 10th. These skills also have almost nothing to do with your character class. I don’t know why classes are even in this game. Because every class can solo to their hearts content. Basically you have the fighter, the fighters brother, and finally the fighter. All the classes are the same.

I say this because the cleric isn’t a cleric because I had to use heal potions to heal myself. Self healing is almost useless. If anything you are fighter mage.

The thief is by far the most interesting, but once again you aren’t a thief. There is nothing thief like except for flipping around the screen in cool ways. I never once found myself disarming traps or being able to sneak past creatures or picking locks. It is just fight this and fight that.

Sure the game looks kinda of pretty, but try talking to any of the npcs walking around. YOU CAN”T. It is a dead world. But that is the way the entire game is. Pretty appearances with nothing underneath. I could almost play the game blindfolded. You click on this npc, go from point a to point b, fight some creatures, hit some traps that can’t be disarmed and really aren’t deadly, because everyone has heal potions (another reason no one needs clerics), and fight a boss monster. Do it again and again.

Usually the one thing that saves many MMOs is character creation, but in this game you don’t notice it. None of the quests were really that interesting. Nothing encouraged me to group up with anyone. D&D is all about the group, yet this has none of it.

The storyline is fluff and meaningless. I never once felt like a hero, just some idiot who did what he was told. The begining makes it out like Neverwinter is under attack and for the first 10 levels, there is nothing going on. Just silly task quests.Why aren’t you first involved in saving the city before you go on all these stupid quests??

I really thought cryptic might have learned from it’s old mistakes, but no. I even thought, hey Turbine has a great D&D game, even though the graphics are getting outdated and maybe they would take some cues from there, but no. Then there is GW2, maybe they would get innovative with that, but no.

The game isn’t really bad, and it isn’t really great and it isn’t D&D and it isn’t really anything but beige and bland. Go try RaiderZ which is by perfect world and it is a million times more exciting and is free to play as well. The character classes are great, the story is great and the combat is way more exciting.

The combat in this game is like you are stuck to the floor with honey and it is struggle to move out of the way. The red areas that special attacks land in often hit you even if you have jumped out of the way (maybe this is a timing issue they haven’t fixed). Eventually it almost seems pointless when you can land a few more attacks and kill the creature and pound down a heal potion. Also sometimes it also seem pointless due to the sheer number of red circles that they put down. You jump out of the way only to land into another red area. I never once felt threatened or scared. I mean my 12th level cleric could take down a 19th level ogre with no problem. This game just babies the hell of you to the point that you aren’t even challenged. It almost makes you want to play Wizardy Online for to feel of being challenged again.

So the future isn’t a boot stamping on a human face, forever. It’s a person in a beige business outfit advocating beige policies that nobody wants (but nobody can quite articulate a coherent alternative to) with a false mandate obtained by performing rituals of representative democracy that offer as much actual choice as a Stalinist one-party state. And resistance is futile.

I needed a new LCD monitor and shopping for one was a total headache. I had to return 4 monitors before I found a great one for $249. It was the E2752V AOC.

In the process of doing this, I learned a ton about LCDs since the last time I purchased one. For starters DVI is on the way out. The majority of new LCDs will have only HDMI. After doing some research I found that the speed of HDMI is the same as DVI and it carries sound. I also discovered some ways to test monitors.

1. Check for dead pixels, by using a black background or use this software: Monitor Test

2. Check red text on gray background.

3. Check movies for blurring when people walk from one side of the screen to the other.

4. Check viewing angle as this will throw colors off at the bottom or top of the screen.

Finally the next generation LCDs are IPS, which offer much better resolution and colors than current LCD but cost more. Make sure you have a video card that supports HDMI and an HDMI cable. In a year it is going to be hard to find DVI.